An interesting dynamic arose in 1 Samuel 1. Hannah desperately wanted a child but was barren – “the Lord had shut up her womb (vs. 6). For a Jewish woman this was the disappointment of a lifetime. Without the ability to bear children she would be an outcast from society and she would be deprived of the joys of motherhood. She was facing one of the worst problems possible, one about which she could do nothing. There were no fertility treatments or other medical options available. She could not turn to a surrogate. She had only one option available but it could be more effective than any procedure known to man.
“So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk…And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed loom on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head” (1 Samuel 1:9-11).
What did she do? She turned it all over to God and there was an immediate reaction. No the immediate reaction was not conception (though that shortly followed in vs. 19-20). The immediate reaction was “so the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad” (vs. 18). You see, at the time she did not know for sure that she would bear a child, but she did know that there was nothing else she could do and she was satisfied. We need to do the same. We face a lot of things in life we can do absolutely nothing about. We can do one of two things. We can either worry, fret, and agonize over it or we can pray about it and let it go. That’s what Hannah did and it changed her life. What should we do when life becomes too difficult to bear and there’s nothing we can do about it – turn it all over to God (1 Timothy 6:6)!
-Andy Brewer